Harold Alaric Jacob (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
correspondent in Washington in the 1930s and a war correspondent during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in North Africa, Burma and Moscow.
Early life
Alaric Jacob was the son of Ellen Hoyer, the daughter of a Danish missionary, and Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Fenton Jacob, a member of the Indian Army and former
political agent Political Agent or political agent may refer to:
*Political Resident, a representative with consular duties and political contacts with local chiefs
*Political officer (British Empire), an officer of the British imperial civil administration, also ...
in
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
. Jacob was born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
and brought up in Scotland. As a child, he spent time in India and Arabia, but was educated in England. He was a childhood friend of Soviet spy
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...
. Jacob developed a stammer, which he believed came from his association with Philby. This was managed over time by singing lessons.
[Alaric Jacob ''Sharing Orwell's Joys – but not his fears'' in Christopher Norris ''Inside the Myth'' Lawrence and Wishart 1984]
Like several other promising children from Anglo-Indian or military families, Jacob attended
St Cyprian's School
St Cyprian's School was an English preparatory school for boys, which operated in the early 20th century in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Like other preparatory schools, its purpose was to train pupils to do well enough in the examinations (usuall ...
for reduced fees. English novelist
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
left the school the year before Jacob started, and was presented as an inspiration to the students.
Jacob's first term at St Cyprian's overlapped with English writer and literary critic
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote '' Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combin ...
's last year there. Connolly gave a lesson in Jacob's last year. For Jacob it was "an age of friendships, of excitement on the cricket fields and in school plays, of singing to a receptive audience at concerts, of having a sonnet printed in the school magazine, of winning the
Townsend Warner History Prize." Jacob struggled with the
classics and did not enter for a scholarship to
public school
Public school may refer to:
* State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government
* Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...
. He instead studied at
The King's School, Canterbury; however, unimpressed with what he was learning, he left school and moved to France to pursue a career in journalism.
Career
Writing and journalism
While in France, Jacob began writing, returning to England after the
General Strike
A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...
. When he was seventeen, his first play was produced in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
, where he started his career as a journalist on the ''
Western Morning News
The ''Western Morning News'' is a daily regional newspaper founded in 1860, and covering the West Country including Devon, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Somerset and Dorset in the South West of England.
Organisation
The ''Western Mo ...
''. His second play, ''The Compleat Cynic'', was produced in Plymouth the following year. In 1930, ''Seventeen'', his first novel was published. It is a fictionalized account of his school days in Canterbury. By then, he had become a close friend of
Margot Asquith
Emma Margaret Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (' Tennant; 2 February 1864 – 28 July 1945), known as Margot Asquith, was a British socialite, author. She was married to H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1894 ...
, forty years his senior, who became his mentor and literary influence. She introduced him to editors and important literary figures, including
Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters, and was offered a position as diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in London.
During his time in London, Jacob moved in high social and intellectual circles. He wrote a play in which the hero was a communist and as a result, decided to read ''
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in Historical mater ...
''. In 1934, he married
Iris Morley
Iris Vivienne Morley (10 May 1910 – 27 July 1953) was an English historian, writer and journalist.
Morley was born at Carshalton, Surrey, the daughter of Colonel Lyddon Charteris Morley CBE and Gladys Vivienne Charteris Braddell. She married Ro ...
, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Chartres Morley. She was a historical novelist and journalist for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' and the ''
Yorkshire Post
''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...
''. Early in their marriage, they bonded amidst the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and hunger marches. This period stirred up socialist sentiments in the couple.
In 1936, the Jacobs went to Washington where he was in regular and close contact with US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
. They stayed in Washington until the outbreak of World War II, when they returned to London.
War correspondent
Jacob remained in London until May 1941 when became a war correspondent for the ''
Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
''. He sailed to
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, taking the long sea route via
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
. He spent the next two years with the 8th Army in North Africa, initially covering the
Siege of Tobruk
The siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against Allied forces in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. ...
and
Operation Crusader
Operation Crusader (18 November – 30 December 1941) was a military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War by the British Eighth Army (United Kingdom), Eighth Army (with Commonwealth, Indian and Allied contingents) ...
. He was withdrawn from
Tobruk
Tobruk or Tobruck (; grc, Ἀντίπυργος, ''Antipyrgos''; la, Antipyrgus; it, Tobruch; ar, طبرق, Tubruq ''Ṭubruq''; also transliterated as ''Tobruch'' and ''Tubruk'') is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near th ...
shortly before it fell to the Germans and was posted to
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
where he received permission from the Soviet Embassy to visit the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
in Azerbaijan. He returned to Egypt for the
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and
second Battle of El Alamein, before traveling to India. He covered
Wingate
Wingate may refer to:
Places
New Zealand
* Wingate, New Zealand, a suburb of Lower Hutt
United Kingdom
* Wingate, County Durham
* Wingate Quarry, a Site of Special Scientific Interest in County Durham
* Old Wingate, County Durham
* Wingates ...
's first '
Chindit' expedition in
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, and the circumstances of
Gandhi's fast. In the Soviet Union for four months, he covered the
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...
and Stalin's counterattack. He described his experiences in ''A Traveler's War'' published in 1944.
After Christmas leave in England in 1943, Jacob and Iris sailed to the Soviet Union in January 1944 on board a ship of the Arctic Convoy. They spent the remainder of the war in Moscow, covering the advances of the Red Army in Odessa, the Crimea, and through
Vitebsk,
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
, Poland, and on to the fall of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. He published ''A Window in Moscow'' in 1945. His experiences made him sympathetic towards the Soviet regime and he stayed in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, on and off, until the start of the cold war in late 1947. Iris had become a
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and her ideas strongly influenced him. He suspected that her membership of the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
worked against him even when they were separated, and that he was blacklisted by the BBC and put on their
"Christmas tree" list of potential political subversives as a result.
[Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylo]
''Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting''
London: The Hogarth Press, 1988 ]
In 1949, Jacob published ''Scenes from a Bourgeois Life'', a semi-autobiographical novel and an
apologia for the paradoxes and anomalies of his career.
BBC
In August 1948, Jacob joined the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
monitoring service in Caversham, Reading, but in February 1951 he was "suddenly refused establishment rights, which meant he would receive no pension".
He complained unsuccessfully to his cousin
Sir Ian Jacob, who was a senior figure in the BBC and later became the organization's Director-General. Some have attributed Jacob's problems to the fact that his name was on
Orwell's list
In 1949, shortly before he died, the English author George Orwell prepared a list of notable writers and other people he considered to be unsuitable as possible writers for the anti-communist propaganda activities of the Information Research D ...
, a list of people with pro-communist leanings, prepared in March 1949 by Orwell for his friend Celia Kirwan at the
Information Research Department, a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government. Jacob's establishment and pension rights were restored shortly after Iris (also on Orwell's list) died in 1953. By the time he retired in 1972, Jacob had become a senior editor at
Bush House, then the base of the
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
.
In 1971, Jacob published ''Eminent Nonentities'', a book of short stories about the unknown characters he encountered as a war correspondent.
Personal life
After Iris died in 1953, Jacob married British actress
Kathleen Byron
Kathleen Elizabeth Fell (11 January 1921 – 18 January 2009), known professionally as Kathleen Byron, was an English actress.
Early life
Byron was born in Manor Park (then part of Essex) to what she described as "staunch working-class social ...
. He had one daughter with Iris Morley, and a son and daughter with Byron.
Journalist
Paul Hogarth
Paul Hogarth, OBE, RA (born Arthur Paul Hoggarth) (4 October 1917 – 27 December 2001) was an English artist and illustrator. He is best known for the cover drawings that he prepared in the 1980s for the Penguin edition of Graham Green ...
described Jacob in his obituary as the quintessential English journalist; urbane yet modest, with a bone-dry sense of humor and a razor intelligence. "He possessed the grand manner of an Edwardian foreign correspondent with an
Alan-Clark-like taste for vintage claret, a good cigar and fine brandy".
Jacob died in
Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
, London, aged 85 on 26 January 1995. Byron survived him; she died in January 2009.
Publications
* ''Seventeen'' (1930)
* ''A Traveller's War'' (1944)
* ''A Window in Moscow'' (1946)
* ''Scenes from a Bourgeois Life'' (1949)
* ''Two Ways in the World'' (1962)
* ''A Russian Journey''
* ''Eminent Nonentities'' (1971)
Unpublished books
* ''A Snob's Guide to Socialism''
* ''Lovers of the Lost''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Alaric
1909 births
1995 deaths
British expatriates in the Soviet Union
English male journalists
English people of Danish descent
People educated at The King's School, Canterbury
People educated at St Cyprian's School
Writers about the Soviet Union
British expatriates in the United States
British autobiographical novels